RELATED: SNL Mocks Al Sharpton And His MSNBC Show

1.Will Mitt Romney’s “Presidential Appearance and Persona”

“He looks presidential, until he starts talking,” said Sharpton. “If he didn’t say anything, we’d almost be impressed.” Al Sharpton is cold blooded, you guys.

2. Newt Gingrich’s “Pseudo-Intellect and Glibness”

“Newt sounds smart. He sounds smarter than I think he is.” You know what? Sharpton is going to wake up with a horse’s head in his bed tomorrow. A My Little Pony head covered in Romney stickers, most likely.

3. Rick Santorum’s Passion

“He’s very passionate. He seems like a man of purpose. A man on a mission.” A man with a vest.

And, finally…

4. Nothing from Rick Perry

“I can’t think of anything I’d take from Rick Perry”

Sheesh. That was weird / brutal / brutally weird. Watch for yourselves, via Aol, and let me know what you think. Was it funny? Out of line? Irrelevant? Something to be resisted much?:

The Huffington Post first created an Oasis at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2008, where it offered treatments and events enjoyed by the likes of host Charlie Rose, writer and media personality Joel Stein and The New York Times‘ David Carr.

The venue space is downright beautiful, and the AOL Huffington Post Media Group was kind enough to send us a few images to share with all of you. Check ‘em out, below. And take a look at the Oasis’ offerings and schedule of events right over here.

Oasis (1 of 6)

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Oooooh! Aaaaaah!

Ad Age spoke with the model / TV host about her new project. She just wants to give you answers, people, through her special team of experts. And what sort of experts can you expect?

For example, my art teacher. Actually, she’s my children’s art teacher for the past five years, and we do all kinds of things together. Seasonal things. Like, for Halloween, we’ll dress pumpkins together. We made these videos so women can look what can you do with your family. I think these kinds of things are important for women.

The magazine asked a question that had been on our minds, too. “Why would I turn to a supermodel who has probably has a stable of hired help for advice on how to get my womb trolls to eat htir vegetables?” And Klum’s answer was just about what we expected:

Ad Age: I can understand how women would be interested in seeking your advice on fashion or beauty, but why should they come to you for advice on parenting or crafts, or anything else?

Ms. Klum: Maybe they don’t. I don’t know. I feel like I know a lot of great people, and they are experts in what they do, and that’s why I have all these people to help me. It is my world — I call it my world — it is really for women who have all different things they’re interested in doing. And I think it is up to them, whatever they want. What they want to get from the site. Some people don’t want to get makeup — they couldn’t care less — and maybe they’d rather know how they can improve their home and how to make their home more beautiful.

In many ways, the deal seems to function quite like traditional print magazines have for some time now: Lifestyle advice and a peek into someone else’s slightly more glamorous life. (You don’t know my life! It might be glamorous!)

h/t AdAge

The announcement came in the wee hours of the morning via Aol’s own TechCrunch, which also shared that Yahoo will be hiring Singh as the new editor in chief of the Yahoo Media Network.

Pitney was previously HuffPost’s executive editor, having initially served as the site’s politics editor throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, before becoming the site’s national editor and Washington bureau chief.

HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington sent an internal memo about Pitney’s promotion:

I’m delighted to announce that Nico will become the Managing Editor of The Huffington Post Media Group. Jai and I have been talking for some time about his desire to return home to California and his family. I’m delighted to announce that Nico will become the Managing Editor of The Huffington Post Media Group. Jai and I have been talking for some time about his desire to return home to California and his family.

via TechCrunch

Since Aol CEO Tim Armstrong and Arianna Huffington jointly announced plans to merge their companies on Super Bowl Sunday, many media critics have guessed how these household brand-name media companies would specifically co-mingle. And while its been widely reported that, post-acquisition, Aol has bee shedding numerous writer, reporters and content producers, Mediaite hears from a credible source that in the coming days, Aol News will officially fold its operations entirely.

In early March, reports surfaced of upwards to 750 individuals being laid off as a result of the merger, the majority of which they claimed were technical staffers overseas. However, nearly 120 of these staffers were in editorial roles, immediately raising questions about Aol’s integration strategy with Huffington Post content. In fact, one could reasonably wonder what exactly comprises the Aol News department right now, apart from some blue ribbon reporters still on staff and an AP newsfeed.

Aol CEO Tim Armstrong clearly saw HuffPost as a turnkey content solution for his burgeoning strategy to grow his media assets and distance himself from the subscription/ISP revenue model, which clearly makes Aol News redundant.

Since launching just over five years ago, Huffington Post has redefined what is currently considered successful Internet content strategy, with smart original reporting combined with fast third-party content curation ,and clever headlines. But the editorial tilt to Huffington Post is its unique point of view, or as some have noted, its “coastal tabloid sensibility.” Its worth nothing that Huffington Post launched as the liberal alternative to the Drudge Report.

While one can reasonably assume that the “Aol News” brand will still exist online, more to the point, all of the content will be produced and overseen by the Huffington Post team.

The folding of the Aol News department and replacement by HuffPost will create an interesting dynamic between the more predominantly “red state” Aol users who will now be directed to “blue state” oriented Huffington Post content. Regardless, this provides the most convincing argument to date that Huffington Post was only “acquired by Aol,” as far as the finance departments are concerned.

When reached, Aol did not immediately provide comment. We will update accordingly.

Gawker, noting that Working Life featured a means of contacting Tasini with advertising inquiries, asked him whether he ever successfully sold ad space on his blog and, if so, whether he used that profit to reimburse his contributors for their work:

There was never a thought that we would do that.

Oh, I see what you’re doing. Are you comparing my little blog to the Huffington Post? That’s absurd.

Gawker concedes this point while also noting that Tasini has something of a history of “getting paid without doing too much work himself,” pointing to his previous lawsuit against The New York Times Co. as well as his “Creators Federation” project – a now-defunct nonprofit from which Tasini managed to receive $46,700 in consulting fees between 2002 and 2003.

The nonprofit, Tasini explains, was created as a lobbying group for creative writer types, but he was forced to shut it down after two years when he didn’t receive the response he’d hoped.

The article manages to make Tasini seem opportunistic (a criticism Huffington also hinted at in her response to the lawsuit) but – playing Devil’s Advocate here – the man could also be seen as someone who is just plain creative when it comes to making money. If you can’t beat the system, join it to a degree. Then try to beat it again.

The same goes for fighting the blogging machine as with running for Congress, we suppose.

h/t Gawker

When paidContent brought up the valid point that Tasini not only agreed to blog for HuffPost for free, but did so over a period of five years, Tasini responded that “it’s almost irrelevant what agreement was done up front.”

Tasini says in the paidContent post:

On a moral basis, there’s no question there’s unjust enrichment. People were misled about the nature of The Huffington Post. A lot of people were shocked by the notion that once sold, everything we wrote was [owned by HuffPo]. Essentially what we’re doing is saying, look, you should share that wealth [that came from the sale].

Tasini also claims that those who agreed to contribute to the Huffington Post’s group blog were somehow under the impression that, eventually, one HuffPost’s model proved profitable, they would see payment:

People believed that at some point there would be money forthcoming. They believed that once this was a profit-making venture, people would get paid. More and more people are coming forward with examples—they believe promises were made to them.

From a legal point of view, it’s not important—for what we’re arguing—whether people agreed to write for free or not. I will say this—we do want to set up a system going forward that does set a standard [for when writers should get paid].

And then things get interesting. Tasini shared that he was asked to blog because he was running against Hillary Clinton who, apparently, Huffington dislikes. O rly?

He also says the he keeps “getting emails from a whole variety of writers who want to join on as plaintiffs, who are giving us all sorts of inside information.” Plus, while he’s not sure whether his suit will prove successful, he does believe that Huffington has made a “blunder:”

Her arrogance and her clear bile, partly towards me but towards all the people who created the content—that’s working against her. People would have been very reasonable and it would have bought her a lot of good will if she had said, I just got fabulously rich—again—let’s sit down and figure out how I help the people who made this a valuable company. Instead she said, screw you. It’s a totally Marie Antoinette approach.

We’re not sure whether Huffington’s response to the lawsuit – you might recall that she seemed mostly unconcerned by it, even opining that it was, legally, “without merit” – showed bile towards those who contribute to the HuffPost for free, but, rather, annoyance that Tasini was, as the insinuated in her blog post, opportunistically trying to garner money and attention for himself.

It’s a charge seemingly echoed by a recent Gawker post noting that, while Tasini strove to make money through his own blog, he never reimbursed his contributors, either. In fact, it would appear that much of digital ink spilt over this lawsuit has been devoted to describing the personalities at play here rather than whether the suit does indeed have merit. (Because it seems that, form what we’ve read around the web so far, the general consensus is that, no, it does not.)

h/t paidContent

And, if her kitten jokes are anything to go by, Huffington isn’t terribly worried about the lawsuit:

The lawsuit filed Tuesday by Jonathan Tasini is so utterly without merit, and has been so thoroughly eviscerated in the media — including being ridiculed as the “dumbest lawsuit ever” — I am hesitant to take any time away from aggregating adorable kitten videos to respond.

But the suit touches on so many important issues about the current state of the media, the kittens will have to wait.

First, let’s look at the merits of the case:

There are none.

Then, beyond insinuating that Tasini’s motives may be more opportunistic than noble, Huffington maintains that the main issue at hand here is that absolutely no contract was broken between the Huffington Post and its contributors.

Furthermore, she adds, HuffPost’s “group blog” – to which unpaid, non-staff bloggers contribute – provides a flexible and highly visible platform for exposure. And, besides – the silent majority of Huffington Post bloggers are fine with the way the group blog is set up.

While that all makes a heaping amount of sense, we’re not too sure Huffington’s continued comparison to the free content provided on her site and the free content available on, say, Facebook bolsters her argument:

Free content — shared by people who want to connect, share their passions, and have their opinions heard — fuels much of what appears on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Yelp, Foursquare, TripAdvisor, Flickr, and YouTube. As John Hrvatska, a commenter on the New York Times, wrote of the Tasini suit, “So, does this mean when YouTube was sold to Google that all the people who posted videos on YouTube should have been compensated?” (And Mr. Hrvatska no doubt contributed that original and well-reasoned thought without any expectation he’d be paid for it. He just wanted to weigh in.)

The difference here is that YouTube, Twitter and the like don’t demand quality content, and a review on Yelp, for instance, doesn’t represent Yelp as a company or brand, whereas a Huffington Post blog post does. And privacy settings on sites like Facebook indicate that the purpose of the site isn’t necessarily to provide a wide-ranging platform for self-expression or discussion but, rather, a place to share photos and links with a set number of friends. Following this line of thinking, filing a very public lawsuit is just a way for Tasini to seek further exposure.

It’s a bit like comparing apples to adorable little kittens, really.

h/t Huffington Post

Journalist and union organizer Jonathan Tasini is leading the class-action lawsuit against not only the Huffington Post and Aol, but HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington as well.

Tasini had blogged for the Huffington Post – for free, of course – since its early days, but elected to stop contributing three days after the site announced its lucrative deal with Aol in February.

And this isn’t the first time Tasini has launched a suit against a veritable media empire. Reports Forbes:

Tasini was also the lead plaintiff in New York Times Co. vs. Tasini, a lawsuit over the rights of papers to license the work of freelancers for distribution via electronic databases.That case was decided in favor of the plaintiffs.

It’s also not the first time on this particular merry-go-round for Aol: The company was sued In 1999, after two volunteer chatroom moderators determined their working conditions were in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Their suit was eventually resolved with a $15 million settlement.

With Aol and Huffington Post cutting back on bloggers and freelancers and focusing instead on “journalists” providing original reporting, it could be that the companies were already set to rely less on the efforts of unpaid contributors. At any rate, this marks a pivotal turning point for Aol, HuffPost, and other big companies who stand to make a lot of money off of unpaid labor. Then again, the old argument still stands: No one forces writers to contribute to sites that don’t pay them rather than magazines and websites that will. And the exposure and expanded portfolio they receive from contributing their writing to these sites may prove well worth the effort for some.

Needless to say – we can’t wait to see how this turns out.

h/t Forbes‘ Mixed Media

The Huffington Post has always defended its pay model by noting that its contributors are paid – in exposure and increased opportunities. But how do the bloggers themselves feel about their lack of monetary payment? One company providing content to the Huffington Post, Visual Arts Source, announced its plans to seek payment, and urged other unpaid contributors to strike in solidarity. Our own Dan Abrams even weighed in on the Newspaper Guild’s support of the strike.

Researchers from U.C. Santa Barbara’s Carsey-Wolf Center developed a survey to find out just how individual bloggers feel about the site’s payment system. One of the researchers working on the survey explains why they decided to conduct it at this particular time:

We have been planning this survey from the time we heard about the merger.

The merger provides an opportunity to focus on the conditions of digital labor (e.g., bloggers), and who is responsible for value creation (contributors v. distributors) in the digital environment.

Researchers searched out the email addresses for various HuffPost contributors, and contacted them directly. Questions on the survey include the following:

- Do you feel you should receive part of the $315 million AOL used to purchase the Huffington Post?

- Do you feel that the Huffington Post’s brand has changed since the merger with AOL?

- How would you compare the conditions at the Huffington Post to other sites you have blogged for?

- Some have raised concerns about the labor arrangement bloggers have with The Huffington Post. In your opinion, what do you think is the best way for bloggers to address the issue of compensation for digital labor?

Survey results are due out next month.

h/t Forbes‘ Mixed Media

At today’s MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit, Huffington announced plans to unveil a UK edition of HuffPost this summer. The new blog will echo the U.S. formula that has continuously brought the Huffington Post both pageviews and criticism: It’ll feature a core group of paid editors and invite unpaid writers to contribute to a group blog.

And the UK represents just the first step in the newly-formed Huffington Post Media Group’s plans for world domination. Tim Armstrong, Aol’s chief executive, told summit-goers that the U.S. represents a mere 4 percent of the world’s population.

HuffPost’s international editions would very likely steer clear of having the political tilt upon which the American version was originally founded. But make no mistake: Kitten videos are a global phenomenon. Seriously, though, TechCrunch’s revelation that the Huffington Post is beefing up its reporting team and seeking to build centralized newsrooms fits in neatly with the brand’s plans to expand internationally, offering not only aggregated stories but, original – and, thus, possibly hyperlocal – reporting as well.

h/t Guardian

You likely already know that Aol recently laid off hundreds of its employees, leaving several of its blogs without any staff whatsoever. Then, yesterday, it was revealed that Aol was shutting down 30 of its blogs, with some being absorbed into HuffPost blogs and others existing as subheadings within the Huffington Post.

Now, TechCrunch has revealed what is to become of the freelancers who worked at those 30 blogs. An anonymous freelancer who happened to be on a conference call with the Huffington Post’s editor for business and technology news, Peter Goodman, told TechCrunch (Double agent!) that Aol / HuffPost wants freelancers with professional journalism backgrounds to come on board as staffers. According to TechCrunch, the company does not view the ability to blog – not even about adorable kitten antics – as synonymous with journalism. Who’da thunk?

Here’s the money quote, from Goodman:

We can’t replace professional journalism with an adhoc blogging arrangement… we don’t want to confuse professional journalists with bloggers.

That’s an interesting position to take given the Huffington Post’s reliance on contributions from non-journalists like Sean Penn and Alec Baldwin. Then again: These bloggers (Apologies, Alec. We say it with some modicum of love.) aren’t on Aol / HuffPost’s payroll as staffers. And, despite the growing hubbub around the fact that the Huffington Post does not pay contributors to what it refers to as its “group blog,” it does have a roster of paid staffers – a roster that, by the way, continues to grow as the company hires people with extensive reporting backgrounds.

Aol / HuffPost is, in fact, adamant about bulking up its reporting staff and creating a large newsroom:

AOL also wants to staff up its main offices in New York, LA and Dulles, and create large newsrooms of these professional journalists. If you don’t want to move to these locales, AOL is bullish on these freelancers joining hyperlocal news platform Patch. The HuffPost business desk will move into the AOL 770 Broadway offices on Monday, and staffers have already been notified that they should be packing up their belongings for the move to the new office. Goodman says AOL HuffPost wants to create a large newsroom where all staffers are sitting in one area.

TechCrunch notes that, while this may sound great in theory, the reality is that several freelancers who have applied for jobs within this expanding newsroom have yet to hear a response.

In any case: We’re all for it. With big names like Michael Calderone joining its ranks, Aol / HuffPost seems to have the luxury of being able to select the pick of the litter from the online reporting community (and, yes, those are different from bloggers, although it stands to reason that a person can be both a blogger and a journalist), and has the resources in place to create great content. Whether readers are going to flock to that content, of course, remains to be seen.

h/t TechCrunch

Image via CrunchGear

The blogs impacted by the change include Politics Daily, which will become part of HuffPost Politics (thus confirming Matt Lewis‘ fear), and Urlesque, which now becomes part of HuffPost Comedy. Some blogs, like PopEater, will exist as their own entities within the Huffington Post.

Several Aol blogs were left without a staff following its recent wave of layoffs, including, as Business Insider helpfully listed, Holidash, Pawnation, Health, Healthy Living, That’s Fit, KOL, Parentdish, Travel, Kitchen Daily, Aisledash, Royal Wedding, Stylelist and Luxist. Other Aol blogs, like Asylum and Lemon Drop, were previously shut down.

h/t Forbes‘ Mixed Media

Worldwide, the layoffs total about 1,000–the majority (about 750 workers) in India, where TechCrunch reports 600 employees will be fired, and another 150 shifted into contractor’s roles.

In the U.S., the layoffs break down like this:

AOL will be letting go a little over 200 U.S. employees, around 120 of which are in the editorial group. The remaining employees that are being let go work in AOL’s media business but in other operations (sales, technology, product). With the merger with the Huffington Post, AOL will actually be gaining 250 employees from the media property, around 150 of which are editorial staffers. AOL says that after the merger, there is a net gain of 17 employees.

The San Francisco Chronicle Business Insider has Tim Armstrong‘s memo on the layoffs:

From: Armstrong, Tim
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 5:46 PM
To: Armstrong, Tim
Subject: AOL’s Next Step

AOLers -

Today is the next critical step on the comeback trail for AOL. We are creating a next generation hyper-local, national and global media company, and every action we’ve taken since AOL became an independent company has taken us further down that path. Our strategy remains clear: create high quality content experiences for consumers, at scale. As the digital landscape quickly evolves, so must our business, and we must continue to transform our organizational structure to one that works for today’s Internet.

Today, we are announcing an organizational structure that will significantly improve AOL’s ability to focus on growth. The structure will also impact areas of our team — making the decision to reduce staff levels is a necessary part of rebalancing our workforce to be competitive in our industry. Affected employees will be notified today and AOL will offer assistance programs — including workspace, counseling, and technology. We ask all of our employees to help impacted employees find career opportunities within our industry.

The structural changes at AOL are possible because of the progress we have made as a team in the last 12 months. The majority of our sites have materially improved their consumer experiences, our advertising business continues to get healthier and more innovative, our video position is strengthening everyday, our local footprint is quickly expanding, we are attracting some of the most talented people in the world to work at AOL, and our technology infrastructure is simpler and more robust. AOL is a global brand and a global opportunity and we are doing the hard work that will once again make the company an industry leader.

There are three important aspects to the structural changes we are making today. The first is the architecture of our brand portfolio. The second is the organizational design of The Huffington Post Media Group. The third is our shift from India being a business process center to India being a consumer products group focused on the APAC market.

New Structure: Investing in our Brand Portfolio

AOL’s brand portfolio has become more focused and stronger over the last year and we will continue to invest in our brands. We are committed to an AOL brand architecture that empowers us to build best-in-class brands that serve valuable audiences with incredible content and great experiences. As you have seen and have access to, AOL’s brands are measured with a consistent set of criteria that will allow us to transparently judge the health of each brand. As we considered adding The Huffington Post, we looked at the combined assets of the two companies and have found creative ways to strengthen our portfolio and will continue the brand refinement process over time.

AOL will have four areas of significant brands: Media (Media & Ads – including Local), Publisher Networks (Media & Ads for Publishers), Applications (Communications, Mobile, Commerce), and Subscriptions (Paid Subscribers).

We have a clear path to brand success — which is only turbo-charged with the addition of the Huffington Post to our brand portfolio. We have an AOL brand that enjoys 99% brand awareness and our commitment to reinvigorating the AOL Brand has enabled us to begin to shift brand perception of AOL — including being named as one of the top 50 brands “loved” by consumers at the end of 2010. We will continue to invest in the AOL Brand as well as support best-in-class brands that will allow us to grow our overall audience and reflect our focus on the most valuable audiences — our 80, 80, 80 strategy.

New Structure: Huffington Post Media Group

The addition of the Huffington Post will be a core foundational element in our drive to be a leading digital media and brand advertising company. HuffPost attracts over 27 million people a month – its unique visitors have increased 588% over the last three years, and revenue has increased 400%. The company is leading the way in connecting content with social communities. AOL will be replacing approximately $20 million of loss in our news and finance operation with a high growth company and a team that is pioneering the way the world gets information.

The newly formed Huffington Post Media Group (HPMG) is a vehicle to house and grow our investments in journalism and content in general. The goal of HPMG will be to create compelling, content-driven experiences for users. Consumers, world-class brands, relevant audiences, and innovative brand advertising opportunities are a winning formula for the future of the web and HPMG will have significant resources and distribution to be a leader in our space.

With Arianna’s leadership and vision, HPMG will be fueled by high-quality editorial content, and will give AOL the enhanced ability to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, entertainment, information, and community – all integrating our local, national and global content initiatives. As President and Editor-in-Chief, Arianna will lead the content vision. Jon Brod, as HPMG Chief Operating Officer, will be Arianna’s business partner and lead the business strategy for HPMG. We will replicate this model through the vertical content areas and become an editorial-led media organization that allows us to create higher quality content in real time, while better aligning the editorial and business sides of our company.

We are creating Department Editor positions for each of the editorial departments and their partners will be the General Managers (formerly our Mayors), who will continue to serve as CEOs, driving revenue, distribution and overall growth strategy for the departments they support. We will be expanding the advertising programs (like Project Devil) and the distribution opportunities (like mobile and video) through the work of the GMs. GMs will also work to connect the content brands with our central sales force.

The editorial-driven model of The Huffington Post Media Group will also change the way we create our content. Going forward, AOL will invest more heavily in our in-house editorial team and transition away from a reliance on freelance journalists. Journalists are the heart and soul of a media company, and our reporters and editors will be working closely with the tech group to produce compelling and engaging editorial content – including lots of video.

As part of this enhanced focus on quality journalism, we will be making new editorial hires in the HPMG as well as continuing to expand and grow Patch. With the acquisition of The Huffington Post and this renewed focus on editorial creation, we have increased the number of staff dedicated to content creation to over 1200 people and remain a net importer of journalists.

As a result of this new structure, close to 200 people will be leaving the AOL Media and tech groups in the US. These changes, among others, will be necessary as we execute our Media Group’s vision of creating real-time engagement and continuing to build a comprehensive source of compelling news, entertainment, information, opinion, and community. Specific elements of this integration are still being finalized, and we will communicate them to you as soon as we know more.

New Structure: Refocus in India

India is an important consumer and business market for AOL and we have a talented workforce covering many aspects of our business. As Kumar has announced to AOL India, as part of the new organizational structure, we have decided to focus our efforts on the India consumer market and move the business processing functions to scaled partners. India is gaining importance as a consumer market and we are actively working on products for that market and will be ramping up research and product engineering after the restructuring. A small number of project engineering functions will transition to Dulles and Dublin, while India starts to focus on Asia and India related consumer products and revenue.

Back office and support functions will transition to 3rd party partners and many current AOL India employees will transition along with those roles to continue to support core AOL functions with new partner companies. For our business and our scale, it makes business and financial sense to partner with other providers.

Overall, the structural changes in India will impact close to 700 jobs, with approximately 400 transitioning out of the company, and 300 transitioning to outsourcing partners to continue to work on the AOL business. AOL India has been a significant part of AOL, starting with call center outsourcing in 2002 and morphing into a business operations center. The employees of AOL India are talented, energetic, and hard-working – and we will be offering impacted people transition services. I would hope that India becomes a great future consumer market for AOL based on India-first product development.

Today is a day that represents a step toward the future, but also a day where change will cause an impact across our team. AOL remains in the middle of the disruption that the Internet is causing and we are starting to move from being a disrupted brand to a brand that is leading the disruption. The changes we are making are not easy, but they are the right changes for the long-term health of the company, the brand, and for our employees.

Impacted employees will be notified by 3 PM EST today and we will be scheduling an all-employee call at 5pm EST to answer any questions you may have. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly – TA

Charlie Sheen posted his ad for a social media intern Monday (“hardworking, self-motivated, creative, resourceful and social media savvy individual to work closely with him to leverage his social media network”), and the response–as expected–has been intense. Aol’s David Moye reports thousands have already applied. But is it a smart career move?

PR guru Len Gutman, a social media consultant and professor of public relations, tells Moye the job will bring experience–and risk:

Gutman admits that whoever gets chosen will get a lot of experience quickly, but says the downside is “you’re working for a drug addict and a psychopath.”

“Take this job and you’re selling your soul,” he said. “I can’t imagine how much professional experience you’ll get hanging out at clubs.”

Other pros say it’s simply a bad idea for Sheen to turn social media over to an intern–or anybody, for that matter:

“Would you trust a 20-year-old as the spokesman of a company?” asked Gary Clapp, a San Diego-based social media consultant. “Plus, people want to hear Sheen’s crazy rants and get a glimpse inside his head. Put someone else on it and the feed loses its value.”

The internship was mentioned in Sheen’s most recent online video–filled with rambling, incoherent and disturbing statements–and mention of a “six figure” deal:

Maron tells Sheen that he nailed a deal with Interns.com in regards to a job post for a social media intern, “They want to Tweet at 1 o’clock today. It’s a record-breaker, it’s at least six figures.”

Michael Calderone (pictured), formerly Yahoo’s senior media reporter, has been named HuffPost’s new senior media reporter. Trymaine Lee leaves The New York Times to become the site’s new senior reporter. The New York Daily News‘ Michael McAuliffe has been named senior congressional reporter. The Daily‘s Jon Ward has been named HuffPost’s senior political reporter. Soon-to-be Harvard grad Bonnie Kavoussi has been named business reporter, and, finally, freelance writer and Unigo (a site devoted to college students and graduates) founding editor Lucas Kavner has been named entertainment reporter.

The hires demonstrate the newly-formed Huffington Post Media Group’s dedication to original reporting – perhaps, although it’s still too soon to tell, over the site’s popularity as a news aggregator. Or, as Group editor in chief and HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington phrased it, the hires reflect the Group’s goals of delivering “engaging and high-impact journalism.”

The memo comes on the heels of news that Aol’s former president media ,David Eun, is resigning from the company. Armstrong chalks up to the realization that “there wasn’t a fit for what he is looking for at this point in his career.” Jon Brod, currently president, AOL Ventures, will now also serve as COO of the newly-formed Huffington Post Media Group, reporting directly to Huffington on editorial matters and to Armstrong on business matters.

Other changes the company has to look forward to (or steel itself against), include an emphasis on using HuffPo verticals to attract “women, local, and influencers.” Additionally, Aol will “drive global plans in their verticals and be supported by the regional leaders in Europe, Asia, Canada, and Emerging Markets.”

Adam Clark Estes – who formerly worked with the Huffington Post – made the interesting observation via Twitter that Arrington essentially leaked an internal memo as a member of Aol’s team… even though Arrington notes in his post that the memo was sent as an email to “all staff except us.”

h/t TechCrunch

Late last week, Paul Miller, the editor of Aol tech blog Engadget, announced his departure in a farewell post in which he had only good things to say about his time at the blog’s helm, but professed concern over the future of Aol:

I’d love to be able to keep doing this forever, but unfortunately Engadget is owned by AOL, and AOL has proved an unwilling partner in this site’s evolution. It doesn’t take a veteran of the publishing world to realize that AOL has its heart in the wrong place with content. As detailed in the “AOL Way,” and borne out in personal experience, AOL sees content as a commodity it can sell ads against. That might make good business sense (though I doubt it), but it doesn’t promote good journalism or even good entertainment, and it doesn’t allow an ambitious team like the one I know and love at Engadget to thrive.

Miller added that he’s unsure of what the future may hold for him.

In addition, Engadget associate editor Ross Miller has also decided to announce his resignation from the site, detailing his own reasons in a blog post published over the weekend and adding that the “Aol Way” is currently not and may not actually ever be implemented at Engadget, a suggestion echoed by remaining Engadget editor in chief Joshua Topolsky on Twitter, who, in a show of solidarity, added that he agrees with Millers Paul and Ross “philosophically.”

Writes Miller:

The AOL Way isn’t the sole reason, but it’s certainly a catalyst, a symptom of concerns I’ve had for a while. I worry about the long-term viability of what I foresee is the future business model. How our brand will be affected and how much control we’ll maintain over it. If we can continue to nurture the talent without burning them out. If we can get the needed resources to expand on our ideas. (Update: Just to be clear, Engadget is not currently subject to the AOL Way, and I’m not sure it ever will be. It’s not the driving reason behind why I left.)

Aol is on the cusp of implementing serious changes across its blogs, not only with the proposed implementation of the “Aol Way,” but also with the company’s decision to buy the Huffington Post and install its founder, Arianna Huffington, as head of editorial across many of Aol’s verticals – a decision which prompted at least one other Aol writer, Politics Daily’s Matt Lewis, to leave, citing Huffington’s left-leaning political bias as his reason for exiting stage right, as it were, to the Daily Caller.

h/t NY Observer

On his “Tip of the Hat / Wag of the Finger” segment last night, Colbert explained that The Huffington Post is worth every penny of the $315 million Aol shelled out for it, but noted that a good portion of HuffPo’s coverage deals with none other than Stephen Colbert, placing him in the unique situation of growing angry while looking at pictures and videos of himself. Why, then, shouldn’t Colbert get a cut of HuffPo’s sweet, sweet Aol money?

In that vein, Colbert decided to launch The Colbuffington Post, a site covering The Huffington Post’s coverage of the coverage other people have covered covering. Interested? It’s worth exactly $316 million. And it has a rather a catchy name, no?

Watch the clip, via Comedy Central:

The Huffington Post’s executive editor, Nico Pitney (pictured), explained the site’s reasoning in an email to a private, liberal listserv. Here, Pitney is responding to an earlier comment on the topic of compensation by Nixonland author Rick Perlstein:

rick, i wonder whether twitter, facebook, and dailykos will ever pay me for the content i’ve provided them, and which they’ve happily monetized. probably not, but i don’t mind. i understood what i was getting out of writing for them when i did it. which is I think the same case for our bloggers, who get their own benefits from posting on our site, ask to do it, and often yell at me (usually justifiably) when it takes too long for their post to go live. back in college i spent months of my life trying to get my own small blogspot blogs off the ground. it was an incredibly frustrating exercise. huffpost didnt exist at the time, but if it had, i would have jumped at the chance to be published there.

Forbes‘ Mixed Media blogger Jeff Bercovici – who formerly wrote for Aol – weighed in on the discussion in his own column, pointing out that, of course, there’s a difference between writing on a social networking site and writing for a major media company.

Of course, this particular model had proven profitable for the Huffington Post and it hasn’t suffered from a dearth of contributors, even if they happen to complain about lack of payment after the fact. Perhaps the chance to have a platform on a well-known site is incentive enough to override not being compensated monetarily, especially as the site seeks to become more “local” through its deal with Aol.

Time will tell, we suppose.

h/t Forbes

Yes, her positive comments on the merger, as host Jon Scott notes, conflict with previous notes that large media corporations are dangerous for competition among the press. But the panel was far more interested in what will happen to the ideology of the Huffington Post. National Review editor Rich Lowry expressed particular concern in how lucrative a site HuffPo would be without being slanted. “She created a traffic monster” with her liberal slant, he noted, and now is “basically defining her left-wing views as neither left nor right.” He then, somewhat surprisingly, argued that objectivity would be a detriment to her efforts. “It would be a mistake for the site to lose its left-wing identity, because I think that’s really the glue of its community, but she is correct,” he added, somewhat in jest– “pictures of scantily clad models have no ideology one way or another.”

His fellow panelists offered no objection to the scantily clad models, but certainly expressed similar concerns. Jim Pinkerton, in particular, wondered how that ideology would translate to websites like TechCrunch or Mapquest, arguing that those sites wouldn’t take orders from “some limousine liberal in New York.” Alan Colmes, meanwhile, complimented the merger, and interjected that Huffington lives in California, for what it’s work. “She’s showed herself to be a great businesswoman,” he noted, regardless of the outcome.

The discussion via Fox News below:

Maher was steadfast in his belief that there was no challenger the Republicans could throw at Obama who’d have a realistic shot of beating him. He asked Huffington almost rhetorically if there was a Republican she could think of who might get her vote over Obama…but all he got out of her was, “Well – who knows who is going to be running in 2012?” Pressed further, she said she “[doesn't] know enough about Jon Huntsman,” the U.S. Ambassador to China, to definitively say she wouldn’t vote for him.

While none of this exactly constituted a ringing endorsement of Republicans, it certainly wasn’t a rining endorsement of Obama, either – she said she couldn’t even rule out a third-party candidate coming on strong if unemployment remains around its current level, and criticized Obama for sometimes pushing the wrong issue at the wrong time (ex. “health care over jobs”). She did, however, praise his conduct on the situation in Egypt, calling his remarks about the need for true democracy “Obama at his best.”

Video of Huffington’s remarks, via HBO, below. While we’d still bet on her sticking with Obama in 2012 (provided, of course, the 2012 apocalypse doesn’t arrive and the earth swallow us whole before election night), she did leave the door cracked open.

That’s borne out by a memo from AOL Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong on where his company’s journalism is going. It’s fairly chilling reading, ordering the company’s editors to evaluate all future stories on the basis of “traffic potential, revenue potential, edit quality and turnaround time.” All stories, it stressed, are to be evaluated according to their “profitability consideration.” All AOL’s journalistic employees will be required to produce “five to 10 stories per day.”

Rutten then savages the likely result of combining Aol’s thinking with the HuffPo’s expertise at creating and distributing content:

The fact is that AOL and the Huffington Post simply recapitulate in the new media many of the worst abuses of the old economy’s industrial capitalism — the sweatshop, the speedup and piecework; huge profits for the owners; desperation, drudgery and exploitation for the workers. No child labor, yet, but if there were more page views in it…

First, they could become a major liability both legally and for the image of any major corporation. In a mostly loving New Yorker profile on Gawker’s founder Nick Denton, it was revealed that nearly every week at least one of Denton’s nine sites receives a cease-and-desist letter regarding stories that involve potential libelous claims.

Now one can respect and enjoy that tenacity, but companies with the kind of money that can buy Gawker probably would not. Gawker itself thrives on scandal and controversy.  From the anonymous story entitled “I Had a One-Night Stand with Christine O’Donnell” to an attempted outing of John Travolta (which provided the “ins and outs” of an alleged sexual encounter) to sex videotapes,  Gawker relishes in spectacularly raunchy tales that many might still be ashamed to publicly admit reading, much less owning. Oh, and there is also the issue of one of their sites (albeit a smaller one) that ostensibly covers Internet porn.

Such unsavory controversy and the immense potential liability each story carries would either require any large potential buyer like AOL to disavow their risk-averse and advertiser-friendly persona, or require Gawker to fundamentally change what they do. Neither possibility seems likely. Another reason why this is not likely to occur is that Denton exhibits an entirely different, more press-shy personality than Arianna Huffington.

Less significant, but relevant to the Capital “J” Journalism crowd is that Denton proudly utilizes “check-book journalism,” the practice of paying for stories/gossip, which is frowned upon by journalism purists who believe a story becomes tainted when the source is paid to provide it. Denton, according to the New Yorker, refers to the technique as issuing “bounties” and that one “should be willing to pay ten dollars for every thousand new visitors you hope to attract.” Would a large company, concerned about its image and reputation allow that to continue, and would Denton even want to have any strategy questioned when it’s become integral to his success?

Finally, Huffington appears to have made a wise wager trading some independence in exchange for making her website one of the most significant media properties in the country (she made the television talk show rounds Monday night to discuss the new opportunities). Denton, meanwhile, claims he is unwilling to make that same tradeoff. But one has to wonder whether his trashing of Huffington’s decision is just envy of her big payday?

Denton, “in the fashionable mode of modern media executives, declines a corner office” according to the The New Yorker, opts instead to proudly sit alongside his staffers. Maybe running websites – sites that he created, along with the freedom to deliver all the type of content that he knows his audience cherishes – is simply priceless to him.

But if there is a price, major corporations may not be willing to pay it.

Today, Lewis took the opportunity to write a farewell post to his Aol readers, announcing his “imminent departure” to Carlson’s site and explaining his reasons for leaving. He writes that news that Arianna Huffington was taking over as editor in chief of several Aol sites “alarmed” him. Why? Because of her “far-left liberal” views:

I’ve met Ms. Huffington exactly once — on the set of “Nightline’s” election night coverage. She could not have been kinder. Additionally, I have even authored an article or two for her site (on tech issues) over the years. This is all to say that I have no personal issue with Ms. Huffington, and that I am not a “Huff-hater.”

However, writing a guest post is different from working for someone, and it occurs to me that AOL has vastly underestimated the public perception (I would argue the accurate impression) that Huffington is a far-left liberal.

Obviously, I am more than happy to write for a mainstream news outlet where differing opinions are allowed to flourish, but I am less comfortable with the notion of being permanently affiliated with an overtly left-of-center (sometimes activist) outlet.

(On a related note: Isn’t it unfortunate that bloggers / online writers feel a need to explain that they’re not “haters” and that their criticism isn’t indicative of a personal beef? Lewis’ issues with Huffington aren’t hateful or personal in the least, nor were they expressed as such. It’s a shame this had to be spelled out.)

Lewis went on to write that he feels he’ll find the Daily Caller and its team a good fit because they represent the sort of “iconoclastic conservativism” with which he identifies. It’s a bold choice by Lewis, certainly, and we’re keen on seeing where his new role takes him… and whether any other Aol writers who agree with Lewis’ assessment of Huffington’s politics will follow his example.

Huffington herself told PBS’ NewsHour yesterday that “it’s time for all of us in journalism to move beyond left and right. Truly, it is an obsolete way of looking at the problems America is facing.” We suppose that time – and money – will tell whether or not that’s true.

Like the Huffington Post, the Daily Beast is an online entity covering news, entertainment and opinion with a recognizable woman at its helm. And, not unlike Aol, Newsweek is a brand seeking to reinvent itself and breathe new life into what is generally viewed as an outdated offering.

Already, news of the partnership between the Huffington and Aol has resulted in a jump among newspaper stocks because, as Yahoo Finance / the AP sees it, HuffPo’s sale is just “the latest in a string of deals that show investors are interested in companies that cover the news and websites that carry news” …even as Aol’s own stock suffered a drop the day the deal was revealed.

Mediaweek provided an insightful look at some of the challenges facing “NewsBeast,” highlighting two major obstacles: For one, it needs to build an audience (something SEO-friendly content machine HuffPo has in the bag – it boasts around 24 million readers compared to under 3 million for the Daily Beast). And then there’s the matter of, you know. Making money:

From the beginning, the site has tried to do business in a different way – and no wonder, since independent news Web sites have traditionally been unprofitable. But the Beast made the curious decision to divorce itself from the online ad system. It offers no standard ad units and sells only premium custom placements.

The Huffington Post’s worth and profitability had been something of a contentious matter previously, especially given news that it had been shopping for buyers as its backers sought to bow out. Now, Aol hopes that HuffPo will turn out $10 million in profit (before interest and taxes).

So what does this mean for the future of the Daily Beast / Newsweek? Only time will tell, of course, given it’s still anyone’s guess whether the HuffPo’s special brand of search engine optimization and content aggregation and repackaging will prove a long-term, lucrative means of presenting information to readers, or a trend among websites that has reached its zenith with this sale.

When news of the merger first emerged, Brown (despite earlier claims that long-form content “of the old kind” is a dying medium) said she believed that magazines could provide a “different kind of narrative rhythm” than the web, and that she welcomed the opportunity for her web team to write in a way that is “more reflective, reconstructive, predictive, and to provide a more in-depth, narrative account of news.” (Why, yes! I did indeed just link to one of my own articles.)

Our guess? Eventually we’ll witness the pendulum swing back towards longer, more in-depth content, especially given that hand-held, portable devices like smart phones and the iPad allow people to access content nearly everywhere – even as there remains a place and a necessity for quick news blurbs created and curated to attract as many pairs of eyes as possible. But as readers grow wiser, savvier and increasingly jaded with time, they will be more discerning of the news sources they visit and more aware of SEO trickery or sources that offer quantity over quality… perhaps to the extent that they will be willing to pay for better, longer, more quality content on the web and mobile devices.

Update: Found this piece by Jeff Jarvis so on-the-money that I figured I’d bring your attention to it. It’s about Aol / HuffPo, but could apply to the future of NewsBeast.

Here’s my favorite paragraph:

Content alone isn’t enough for Aol. It has content. Lots. What HuffPo and Arianna bring is a new cultural understanding of media that is built around the value of curation, the power of peers, the link economy, passion as an asset, and celebrity as a currency. As a friend of mine reminds me via email from London, HuffPo, thanks to its roots, also has a keen understanding of the value of technology innovation to build platforms. Unlike old media companies, HuffPo groks scale.

HuffPo’s roots as the Left’s answer to The Drudge Report, Huffington says, has given way over the years to a broader, less partisan mix. She notes Newt Gingrich and Joe Scarborough are HuffPo writers.

“We need to drop these obsolete definitions, and I hope with what we’re going to do with the new Huffington Post Media Group at AOL, we have a bigger impact on this debate,” Huffington told CNN’s Kathleen Parker.

Watch it here, from CNN:

The two companies announced the content merger tonight in an extensive press release, detailing the extent to which this would increase the size of both to a combined 270 million unique visitors a month and create a network that combines the Post with all current AOL blogs and content providers, including, among others, Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, and AOL Music. Huffington explained the rationale and expectations she has for her new network:

“This is truly a merger of visions and a perfect fit for us,” said Huffington. “The Huffington Post will continue on the same path we have been on for the last six years – though now at light speed – by combining with AOL. Our readers will still be able to come to the Huffington Post at the same URL, and find all the same content they’ve grown to love, plus a lot more – more local, more tech, more entertainment, more finance, and lots more video. We are fusing a legendary and powerful new media brand with a vibrant, innovative news organization, known for its distinctive voice, a highly engaged audience, an expertise in community-building, and a track record for demystifying the news and putting flesh and blood on the data while drawing our audience into the conversation.”

Watch Kara Swisher‘s interview with Huffington and Armstrong below, followed by the full press release:

New York, NY – February 7, 2011 – AOL Inc. [NYSE:AOL] announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The Huffington Post, the influential and rapidly growing news, analysis, and lifestyle website founded in 2005, which now counts nearly 25 million unique monthly visitors*

The transaction will create a premier global, national, local, and hyper-local content group for the digital age – leveraged across online, mobile, tablet, and video platforms. The combination of AOL’s infrastructure and scale with The Huffington Post’s pioneering approach to news and innovative community building among a broad and sophisticated audience will mark a seminal moment in the evolution of digital journalism and online engagement.

The new group will have a combined base of 117 million unique visitors a month in the United States and 270 million around the world**. Following the close of this transaction, AOL will accelerate its strategy to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, and entertainment produced by thousands of writers, editors, reporters, and videographers around the globe.

As part of the transaction, Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s co-founder and editor-in-chief, will be named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and AOL content, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch, StyleList, and more.

“The acquisition of The Huffington Post will create a next-generation American media company with global reach that combines content, community, and social experiences for consumers,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL. “Together, our companies will embrace the digital future and become a digital destination that delivers unmatched experiences for both consumers and advertisers.”

Armstrong continued, “Arianna is a singularly passionate and dedicated champion of innovative journalistic engagement, and a master of the art of using new media to illuminate, entertain and enhance the national conversation. Arianna is a remarkable person and she will continue to create remarkable outcomes for the combined company.”

“This is truly a merger of visions and a perfect fit for us,” said Huffington. “The Huffington Post will continue on the same path we have been on for the last six years – though now at light speed – by combining with AOL. Our readers will still be able to come to the Huffington Post at the same URL, and find all the same content they’ve grown to love, plus a lot more – more local, more tech, more entertainment, more finance, and lots more video. We are fusing a legendary and powerful new media brand with a vibrant, innovative news organization, known for its distinctive voice, a highly engaged audience, an expertise in community-building, and a track record for demystifying the news and putting flesh and blood on the data while drawing our audience into the conversation.”

Huffington continued, “By uniting AOL and The Huffington Post, we are creating one of the largest destinations for smart content and community on the Internet. And we intend to keep making it better and better.”

Kenneth Lerer, The Huffington Post’s Co-Founder and Chairman, said, “The Huffington Post team has created a potent brand with the proven track record of knowing how to grow traffic, inform and entertain its readers and build a one-of-a-kind online community. Add that to the powerful scale and resources of AOL and you have the perfect combination for today and the future. Together these two companies will be a premier online content provider. From local citizen reporting through AOL’s Patch, to The Huffington Post’s national reporting on politics, business and culture, consumers will have access to everything they want whenever they want it.”

AOL has agreed to purchase The Huffington Post for $315 million, approximately $300 million of which will be paid in cash funded from cash on hand. The Huffington Post is privately owned by its two cofounders, as well as a group of investors. The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of government approvals. The boards of directors of each company and shareholders of The Huffington Post have approved the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the late first- or early second-quarter 2011.

The Huffington Post over-indexes on educated, affluent users, reaching the key decision makers in C-suites around the globe. The Huffington Post speaks to this influential audience via a host of prominent voices on its group blog. Among those who have blogged on The Huffington Post are: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Larry Page, Diane Sawyer, Buzz Aldrin, Nora Ephron, Bill Maher, Madeleine Albright, Robert Redford, Katie Couric, Neil Young, Rahm Emanuel, Mia Farrow, Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Al Franken, Ari Emanuel, Harry Shearer, Senator John Kerry, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Madonna, Lawrence Summers, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ryan Reynolds, Craig Newmark, Alec Baldwin, Aaron Sorkin, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Russell Simmons, Sean Penn, Bill Gates, Norman Lear, Charlie Rose, Elizabeth Warren, Tavis Smiley, Sheryl Sandberg, George Clooney, and former President Bill Clinton. And the audience speaks back, generating four million comments a month***.

The Huffington Post’s affluent, influential audience, that is growing at a rate of 22 percent (December 2009 vs. December 2010)****, when combined with AOL’s massive scale, video offerings and local expertise, will represent an incredibly desirable demographic for a broad range of advertising partners across the board.

Countdown

The recent University of Maryland study that has been used to club Fox News like an insolent baby seal contains far more damning evidence of a wider bias.

Merline’s study measured, in head-to-head comparisons, the number of stories devoted to Sarah Palin vs. Joe Biden, Christine O’Donnell vs. Alvin Greene, and Keith Olbermann vs. Glenn Beck. In each case, the conservative figure nearly doubled the total of their liberal counterpart.

The most obvious flaw, though, is that Merline doesn’t measure the type of coverage in each case. Sarah Palin, for example, is a publicity supernova, but you don’t need a Stat-O-matic to know that most of that publicity is negative. Part of this is due to a reality bias, some would argue, but even when she’s trying to help cholera-stricken Haitians, she can’t catch a break.

Comparing Christine O’Donnell with Alvin Greene is similarly fraught. O’Donnell’s story contained several elements that gave it far more legs than Greene’s. O’Donnell’s star was handily refueled whenever it began to dim with a new clip from Bill Maher‘s Politically Incorrect, and her “I am not a witch” campaign ad was a nuclear media missile. Once again, though, positive stories about O’Donnell were few and far between.

Perhaps it was the Olbermann vs. Beck comparison that caught the MSNBC star’s eye, and it’s one that is much more in this site’s wheelhouse. While both receive a tremendous amount of coverage at Mediaite, it is interesting to note the difference in the way each of them reacts. While Beck has been frequently and harshly criticized by this site, he has consistently praised us for our fairness.

Olbermann, on the other hand, despite about an even mix of positive to negative coverage, responds to a neutral factual inquiry by calling me a “hatchet man,” a “phony,” and (indirectly) a douche. While he frequently derides “former half-Governor” Sarah Palin for her thin skin, he seems to share the trait.

In any case, while AOL’s study doesn’t prove a conservative bias, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. The recent study by the University of Maryland has been widely hailed as an indictment of Fox News, and while that’s the sexy angle to take, it misses a larger, scarier point. In many cases, the level of misinformation promoting conservative talking points on the Big 3 networks’ evening newscasts was nearly identical to that of Fox News, an indication that the right has a much larger echo chamber than just Fox News.

Most of the reporters I talk to agree that if there’s a bias in the news media, it is not to the left or the right, but toward laziness. The fact that people seem to get their news from sources that reinforce their own opinions indicates that the media is, in turn, breeding lazy viewers.

Note: Tommy Christopher also writes for Asylum.com, which is owned by Politics Daily parent AOL, and was also a founding contributor to Politics Daily.

The three new blogs include The Cutline, a media blog run by Michael Calderone and Joe Pompeo; The Lookout, a blog covering national affairs run by Zachary Roth, Brett Michael Dykes, and Liz Goodwin; and The Ticket, a political blog run by Holly Bailey and Rachel Rose Hartman.

The announcement on the Upshot says:

The Upshot has just given birth to triplets.

Since the site launched in July, we’ve hustled to pull together the most interesting and important news on three core beats: politics, national affairs and media. Our bloggers have broken news and analyzed big stories, pointed out to great stories by other publications, and done our best to offer you a comprehensive media diet.

And you’ve responded. Readers inside and outside of the Yahoo! network have read the site by the millions, shared our stories via email, Twitter and Facebook, and engaged with our bloggers.

So today, we’re launching three new sites dedicated specifically to the topics The Upshot was already covering.

In addition, Advertising Age has a lengthy piece out today about Yahoo’s growth — and struggles — which reveals that although Yahoo! has had layoffs recently on the tech side, they continue to bring in new editorial hires, including Deadspin founder & New York Contributing Editor Will Leitch, who will head up movie coverage. Yahoo also recently hired former Defamer editor Mark Lisanti to head up their entertainment coverage, as well as a number of other bloggers and reporters to fill out their yet-to-launch entertainment and finance blogs.

Although Yahoo is the web’s #1 most-trafficked news site, much of their content has long been syndicated from places like the Associated Press and Reuters.  With the launch of the Upshot and three sister blogs, as well as their growing stable of veteran reporters poached from other media organizations, Yahoo is clearly betting on original content as the key to their success strategy.